On Jul 10, 6:29 pm, Michael Hoffman wrote:
XmaX wrote:
Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocket
London Connections map form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.

Define pocket. I've never seen one the size of a small pocket tube map.
The information kiosk at Cambridge station usually seems to have some
larger brochure-sized maps.
--
Michael Hoffman
Pocket = something I can take, as opposed to look at the poster
Probably the easiest solution for me would just be to put an image of
the map to my mobile, I already have a London street map and the tube
map on it, so it should be enough.

I'm sure there are many stations that do have the map, but I can only
tell you for sure that Harringay station has them, because it's near
me and I picked up mine over there the other day.

It's a London Connections map on one side, and a London and the South
East on the other side; very nice to have.

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Mr Thant wrote:

On Jul 10, 7:18 pm, MIG wrote:

Would you be completely pure about it and consider them to be Charing
Cross services, and have three parallel colours down a relatively minor
branch like Caterham?

All services to/through London Bridge should be the same colour, since
it's easy enough to change there.

Yes. I mentioned that in passing in my list. King's Cross and Moorgate
lines will also be the same colour.

Also (did someone already ask?) what colour will you use when trains
travel from one terminus to another, eg London Bridge to Victoria by a
number of different routes at various times, currently two main ones?

The SR one I posted yesterday has parallel lines in both colours.

Hmm. Don't think i like that; it implies there are two services on the
line, one going to each terminus, when really, there's only one service,
that goes to both. My immediate reaction is to treat such services as
orbital, and colour them the same as the NLL etc; whether this is right
depends on how they're used, really. Another option would be to use a line
of alternating colour, as on the old Railway Clearing House maps, eg:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cj.tolley/rjd/rjd-040.htm

However, then we're back to looking vile.

tom

--
Come on thunder; come on thunder.

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:52:03 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

All that stuff about maps got me thinking. It should be possible to colour
in the lines on the London Connections map to show which termini trains
run to. Since i'm a dab hand with the Gimp, i thought i'd give it a go
myself.

I'm not convinced by your limited attempt with the Paddington lines. I
agree with you that it does not stand out well enough and using such
thin lines will cause problems for those of us with less than perfect
colour vision when lines cross over each other. I can cope with the
tube map perfectly well because it so bold and clear in its use of
colour.

Agreed. I'm going to go back and do this (when i get a round tuit) by
editing the PDF; the NR lines are drawn as thick coloured lines (like the
tube lines) with slimmer white lines sitting on top of them, so i just
need to reduce the stroke width of the white lines to make the visible bit
thicker. Easily done.

I think there needs to be a decision as to whether you just want to show
a mini network as one colour into one terminal station or if you wish to
attempt to show service patterns as per the tube map and that old
Southern Railway map that was in a post yesterday.

Not sure what you mean. Do you mean stopping patterns along a line? If so,
i'm not going to show that, any more than the tube map shows them along
the Met. Do you mean a route carrying trains to multiple termini? If so,
i'll show that, just as the tube map does, eg east of Aldgate East. Where
services to different termini sharing a route have different stopping
patterns, i'll show it, as with the Picc and District west of Hammersmith.

The only tricky bit will be if there are sitations where there are trains
that go A - B - C - D - E and others that go X - B - C - Y - E, but not A
- B - C - Y - D; there, there have to be two lines between B and C,
connecting to the relevant lines to A/X and D/Y, even though they're the
same colour. As with the line through Blackwall on the DLR:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/dlr-zones.pdf

Where you have Tower - Beckton and Bank - KGV services, but not vice versa
(IYSWIM).

Basically, the rule is simple; if you can follow an unbroken line from one
station to another without reversing, there is a train that runs between
them that follows that route. It may not stop at either station, but it at
least goes past them. The lines will then be coloured according to their
terminus.

Bonus freaky map:

http://www.itsworldcongress.com/its_...be_dlr_map.htm

I liked the old SR map because it showed the service pattern. I'm not
terribly familiar with the service pattern in South London and giving
that information clearly using colour was a genuine help.

That's more or less what i'm aiming for. My map will be slightly simpler
because i'm not showing stopping patterns along the lines, meaning i don't
have to show the Lewisham bypass. Also, my map doesn't go nearly as far!

The Overground map with trains per hour is moderately helpful but is
confusing at certain points where numbers of train per hour suddenly
increase at key stations but then decline either side of that station.
You get no sense of what trains run where.

Yes, that's annoying. I assume it's because you have, say, a 4 tph
suburban service along the Windsor line, but there are also county trains
that stop at, say, Putney and Waterloo only, so you have more tph at
Putney than the stations either side. Effectively, a stopping pattern
thing. I'm dealing with this problem by not showing frequencies!

I realise the service pattern option would get very busy in South London
and some parts of North London and this might mean having two maps to
deal with it. If you could get sufficient clarity / scale to
accommodate service patterns then it should be possible to show the
frequency of trains per hour for each service which would allow people
to better see how frequently direct trains ran vis a vis the options of
changing at somewhere like Lewisham or Clapham Junction or Sutton.

I think i'm going to leave this to someone else.

If you wished to show just one colour for a group of lines then the
other option is to designate service patterns with route codes (like the
RER) and show which codes stop at which station.

Certainly something to consider. This can also be shown by parallel lines
of the same colour with different patterns of station markers, as is done
on the Metropolitan line's strip maps (which i can't find online). I think
i'd only resort to this in extreme cases, though; if not showing this
detail is good enough for LU, it's good enough for me.

I applaud your efforts for trying and hope you come up with a neat
solution.

Thank you.

tom

--
Come on thunder; come on thunder.

On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:34:54 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:52:03 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

All that stuff about maps got me thinking. It should be possible to colour
in the lines on the London Connections map to show which termini trains
run to. Since i'm a dab hand with the Gimp, i thought i'd give it a go
myself.

I'm not convinced by your limited attempt with the Paddington lines. I
agree with you that it does not stand out well enough and using such
thin lines will cause problems for those of us with less than perfect
colour vision when lines cross over each other. I can cope with the
tube map perfectly well because it so bold and clear in its use of
colour.

Agreed. I'm going to go back and do this (when i get a round tuit) by
editing the PDF; the NR lines are drawn as thick coloured lines (like the
tube lines) with slimmer white lines sitting on top of them, so i just
need to reduce the stroke width of the white lines to make the visible bit
thicker. Easily done.

I think there needs to be a decision as to whether you just want to show
a mini network as one colour into one terminal station or if you wish to
attempt to show service patterns as per the tube map and that old
Southern Railway map that was in a post yesterday.

Not sure what you mean. Do you mean stopping patterns along a line? If so,
i'm not going to show that, any more than the tube map shows them along
the Met. Do you mean a route carrying trains to multiple termini? If so,
i'll show that, just as the tube map does, eg east of Aldgate East. Where
services to different termini sharing a route have different stopping
patterns, i'll show it, as with the Picc and District west of Hammersmith.

If you take the Paddington example you used for your trial. Note I'm not
100% certain about real service patterns these days. Ideally I'd like to
see the principle that LU use where the Picc / District run parallel.
This shows there are two services and also that one is fast and one is
stopping. On the Paddington example I'd perhaps see it like this

Paddington - beyond London area expresses have one line
Paddington - Greenford has a line showing all the stops it stops at.
Paddington - Windsor has a line showing all the stops it stops at
Paddington - Slough etc

Each line on the map should, IMO, have a code number to reflect the
service group / stopping pattern and ideally that code number would be
shown on the train, in the timetable and on all information displays.
Then a passenger could see easily that any "75" or a "82" train on any
day would call at, say, Ealing Broadway. I suspect this would impose
too much rigidity on the TOCs but this consistency of approach to
services and all related information would be a big step forward. It's
no different to S Bahn numbering in Germany.

I appreciate this would look very busy and the lines might be very wide
on the approach to Paddington but conveying the service patterns and
grouping would be helpful.

The only tricky bit will be if there are sitations where there are trains
that go A - B - C - D - E and others that go X - B - C - Y - E, but not A
- B - C - Y - D; there, there have to be two lines between B and C,
connecting to the relevant lines to A/X and D/Y, even though they're the
same colour. As with the line through Blackwall on the DLR:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/dlr-zones.pdf

Where you have Tower - Beckton and Bank - KGV services, but not vice versa
(IYSWIM).

Basically, the rule is simple; if you can follow an unbroken line from one
station to another without reversing, there is a train that runs between
them that follows that route. It may not stop at either station, but it at
least goes past them. The lines will then be coloured according to their
terminus.

I think that sounds like what I am suggesting above but I confess you
ABC examples are a bit confusing.

The Overground map with trains per hour is moderately helpful but is
confusing at certain points where numbers of train per hour suddenly
increase at key stations but then decline either side of that station.
You get no sense of what trains run where.

Yes, that's annoying. I assume it's because you have, say, a 4 tph
suburban service along the Windsor line, but there are also county trains
that stop at, say, Putney and Waterloo only, so you have more tph at
Putney than the stations either side. Effectively, a stopping pattern
thing. I'm dealing with this problem by not showing frequencies!

Your assumption is completely correct for the SWT example you quote.

You could show frequencies in a circle or similar at the end of each
station name or overprinted on to the line diagram.

I realise the service pattern option would get very busy in South London
and some parts of North London and this might mean having two maps to
deal with it. If you could get sufficient clarity / scale to
accommodate service patterns then it should be possible to show the
frequency of trains per hour for each service which would allow people
to better see how frequently direct trains ran vis a vis the options of
changing at somewhere like Lewisham or Clapham Junction or Sutton.

I think i'm going to leave this to someone else.

You're not adventurous enough!

If you wished to show just one colour for a group of lines then the
other option is to designate service patterns with route codes (like the
RER) and show which codes stop at which station.

Certainly something to consider. This can also be shown by parallel lines
of the same colour with different patterns of station markers, as is done
on the Metropolitan line's strip maps (which i can't find online). I think
i'd only resort to this in extreme cases, though; if not showing this
detail is good enough for LU, it's good enough for me.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...politan(1).pdf

is what I think you need. The link will not work properly as pasted
because of the brackets but I'm sure you can cope!
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Jul 10, 6:39 pm, XmaX wrote:
Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocketLondonConnectionsmap form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.


There are some at Cannon Street today.